This article is not a sad story although the story of Chris Candido and Tamara Lynn Sytch is a tragic one which is well documented in the Dark Side of the Ring episode Chris and Tammy. This article is about Chris and Tammy’s early months in the WWF when they became the Body Donnas.

Chris and Tammy first came to my attention in the mid 1990’s through the pages of Pro Wrestling Illustrated where I read about these up and coming stars in Smoky Mountain Wrestling and the National Wrestling Alliance.

In an article in Pro Wrestling Illustrated, they stated ‘There’s little doubt Fytch’s star will soon rise must faster and much brighter…In just two years Fytch has become one of wresting’s most powerful managers’.

There were not many female managers at the time so Fytch really stood out as something different. The relationship between the two also provided something different – it was evident through there on-screen interactions that Chris and Tammy were really in love.

Chris described to WWF Magazine how they first met on 2nd June 1990 “I had just started professional wrestling, and we happened to have a show at her high school that day. She was coming home on the bus from a football game when I first met her after the show. She didn’t even know I was one of the wrestlers”

Tammy joined Chris in the wrestling business in 1992 when they were both signed by Smoky Mountain Wrestling. They soon became a hated duo, firstly when Chris teamed with Brian Lee and they became embroiled in a feud with the beloved Rock ‘n’ Roll Express over the tag team titles. The heel heat was turned up a notch after Chris formed a team with Boo Bradley and later turned on him leading to a vicious dog collar match.

When Shane Douglas threw the National Wrestling Alliance title to the ground, a tournament was held to become the new champion. Chris had one of the highlights of his career as he defeated Al Snow, ‘Dirty White Boy’ Tony Anthony and Tracy Smothers to with the prestigious title.

Success leads to further opportunity and that arose when Chris and Tammy signed with the WWF in 1995. No longer Chris and Tammy they were rebranded, as was common at the time, to become Skip and Sunny the Body Donnas. Vignettes appeared on WWF promoting the two as fitness fanatics.

Things initially started well with Skip getting victories over Aldo Montoya, Duke Droese, Bob Holly and Doink on house shows. Another opponent Skip gained a number of victories over was Barry Horowitz, a man who soon de-railed Skip’s momentum leading to the famous call “Horowitz wins. Horowitz wins”..

Skip was nonchalant during a ten minutes challenge on Superstars, failing to take his opportunities in a match which ended in a time limit draw on Superstars. This led to a match the following month at SummerSlam 95 where Horowitz shockingly won again. Skip seemed more interested in doing Jumping Jacks in the ring than finishing off his opponent and got surprised for the one, two, three.

Sunny was not willing to take Skip’s lack of success lying down and decided a change was needed. The seeds were sown at the 1995 Survivor Series where her team called the Body Donnas (comprised of Rad Radford, The 123 Kid, Tom Prichard and Skip) beat The Underdogs (comprised off Horowitz, Marty Jannetty, Bob Holly and Hakushi)

Success at the Survivor Series led to Sunny looking to find Skip a tag team partner. At first, she tried Rad Radford but then turned to Prichard, now rebranded as Zip. They debuted at the start of 1996 and were unsuccessful in a tag team title match against The Smoking Gunns at the 1996 Royal Rumble.

The next couple of months saw Skip and Zip gain momentum to earn another title match against the then champions The Godwinns. The match took place on the Free For All show at the start of WrestleMania XII and saw the Body Donnas claim gold.

They successfully defended against the team of Montoya and Horowitz, The Bushwhackers, The Godwinns, and the New Rockers.

A rematch against The Godwinns was booked for a show at Madison Square Garden. Before the match, Sunny secretly tricked Phineas to hand over their managerial rights so effectively she was managing both teams. The Godwinns ended up regaining the titles and Skip and Zip were crestfallen.

They hired a new manager in Cloudy but drifted away from the title scene. Sunny was clearly just using Phineas and it soon turned out that she was in cahoots with the Gunns and she helped them win the titles from the Godwinns.

Later in 1996, Skip was no more in the WWF, reverted back to Chris Candido and joined ECW having great success and part of the Triple Threat. Sunny became AOL’s most downloaded women on their website that year an went on to manage Farooq and Legion of Doom 2000. In 1998 she also left WWF and joined Chris in ECW. The Body Donnas didn’t last long in the WWF but provided some great memories during the New Generation Era.